If you sprinkle when you tinkle, please be neat and wipe the seat

What a glorious day! Okay, so I will recap the rest of this lovely Independance Day weekend shortly, but first things first....Lilah went potty in the potty chair today! There was no fight involved....I asked if she wanted to sit on the big girl potty chair, she nodded yes and proceeded to the facilities (aka Marks throne). We took her diaper off, I sat her on the toilet, she sang herself a encouraging tune and presto peepee!
Harps began playing, angels sang the whole shebang.

So....what else happened this weekend?

Friday the NellNells stuck around the house and painted the storage shed. It went pretty quickly and I am happy to announce that this weekend our storage shed now looks like a million bucks. I hope our neighbors enjoy the colors sauteed mushroom and warm mahogany. Saturday we hung out with family to celebrate the 4th of July holiday. Jeni and Poppy Rich came over for lunch and afterwards we went on to Shawn and Karens house in Marysville for a delicious dinner. Then, home again, where we put the girls to bed entirely too late.

One last thing before I forget, about an hour after Lilah peed in the toilet she again let it flow...right after bathtime, but this time instead of using the facilities she peed on Marks lap.....am I a great potty trainer or what!?

All in all, a really nice weekend .

J

Happy Fathers Day!

What a lovely weekend we had! On Saturday the girls, Aunt Jeni & I had a blast, walking around the mall and window shopping. We visted the girls favorite shops and McKenna even managed to charm her Aunt into buying her a princess goblet. (Aunt Jeni = a Sucker for a pretty toddler face).
Sunday (today)we had a ton of fun spending Fathers Day with Lilah & McKenna & of course Mark! We went down to Picnic Point in Edmonds and enjoyed a overcast day at the beach. The girls had a ton of fun playing in the sand, Lilah seemed to enjoy the beach the most...sand was in every crevase by the time we left. Shortly after the Beadnell clan returned home we all took a nap. Oh what a glorious moment in history, the girls were sleeping at the same time. And REALLY sleeping. Not trashing their rooms in the dark and pretending to sleep.
After the fabulous mid day nap, my dad aka "Poppy Rich" and Aunt Jeni came over to finish the Fathers Day celebration with a dinner. The girls ran around basking in the attention of the extra people within our house and were so excited to give Poppy the gift they hand picked for him. They bought him a white betta fish and lovingly named him "Leotard Bobby" (McKenna chose the name Leotard, Lilah chose the name Bobby). All in all, we had a nice day. Hopefully, Mark enjoyed himself. He is, after all the best dad the girls could ever ask for and the best husband ever.
I hope everyone else had as great of a weekend that we had. Happy Fathers Day to all you Fathers out there reading this blog...
Goodnight. Jaime

Stuff to do, people to see and drugs lots of drugs

The past month has been very busy in our home. We have begun a few new home projects that have made things a bit hectic, and in our usual fashion...we have started them all at the same time. Our current projects include: painting our old shed and building a new shed. 4 weekends ago we began the re-painting of the shed with a coat of white primer after a thorough pressure washing. We of course, have done nothing to the shed since priming it, but I hope to get at least one coat of paint on it this weekend....the reason we haven't painted it yet you ask? Well, we had to start a new project of course! Why finish a project all the way through when you can compound the stress caused by said projects by beginning more? So the weekend after we primed, Mark had his sidekick, Jeffrey over and they began the daunting task of building the basement foundation for a second shed. It's going to be pretty cool when it's finished, but Mark and Jeff were definetly feeling the pain after the Memorial Day weekend was over. Hauling the cinder blocks and pouring cement was tough on their old/frail man bodies (it's funny and not funny all at the same time). Now, seeing as how we have two large projects in the works you would think that last weekend was emersed in completing them right?
In any other family yes, but here...not quite. Last weekend we had a multi family garage sale instead of fulfilling those tasks. Mark & I sold sooo much stuff it was crazy! Though it doesn't seem like it made much more room in our tiny rambler I am sure it did, and it feels good to remove some clutter. This weekend we are attending a birthday party for my cousins daughter Leah who turns one and hopefully after that comes painting.
So looking beyond the home repair, things are going great in our house. The girls are as precocious and wonderful as ever. Lilah is a little ham and says "cheese" now when you ask her to smile (seems she's always expecting us to take her picture, I wonder why?) And McKenna is quickly becoming a sneekier and smarter version of her parents...always getting her way by using her superior mind control techniques against us. I am doing......okay. I am getting quite use to having a sinus infection now and am on my 4th round of antibiotics which still doesn't seem to be working ugh! Hopefully that soon will be resolved when I meet with a specialist. That's all I have for now. It's 10 o'clock and officially 1/2 hr after bedtime. Love you all and hope this summer is treating you well, and always remember...if you need something to do...we have a couple of projects with your name on it. ~Jaime

My little critters

So I have been thinking a bit lately about the Australian wildfires and the Koala Bear that was saved by a firefighter http://newsok.com/koala-saved-from-wildfire/article/3344993 (if you haven't read the article or youtube'd the video, you HAVE to it's so sweet). Well, as with all news I hear or see, it got me to thinking about my children, McKenna specifically.

It struck me at how much that adorable little koala bear reminder me of my McKenna. Big, beautiful eyes, round adorable little face, and this cuddly little body that you just want to wrap in hugs all day long. When I got to thinking about the similarities between McKenna and the koala bear, I realized that they also had quite a bit in common personality wise as well. A koala may look cute and fuzzy, but like McKenna, it could potentially bite your head off if you get up in it's business...it enjoys it's fierce independence and wants to eat the same thing day after day after day....



Well, the Koala/McKenna comparison was so much fun to think about, that (of course) it got me to thinking about Lilah and which animal she emulated. Oh how I wrestled with the many possibilities. She coos like a pigeon, and she will poop anywhere and everywhere..but she is sweet and never annoying...hmmmm.
I tossed around plenty of critters in my mind that almost fit the bill, and then KAPOW! My completely ridiculous epiphany hit...she is like a puppy! A puppy makes funny adorable faces, makes strange noises from each direction of their bodies regardless of awake or asleep, will eat anything on their plate or yours, and is lovey and faithful no matter how their day is going...that IS Lilah!!!

To sum up, I have way too much empty space in my brain to fill with thoughts such as written above.

At least my children are not PC's.

~Jaime

Birthday Love & Learnin'

Our littlest bean is 1 year old! Thank you to all who celebrated and spoiled my little Lilah with your warm wishes and extravagant gifts on her birthday, January 25Th! We had a lot of fun seeing everyone and packing the home with everyone who loves Lilah. I was amazed at how many people actually attended (around 40) since the night before we saw some snow in and around Bothell.
We celebrated the special day with Winnie the Pooh decorations, I think Lilah loved the Pooh Bear balloons best of all, and although we had a few snafus before the party began (IE: Mark picking up someone else's balloons at the party store, "I thought it was weird you ordered little slugger balloons!" and the stinkin' cat sitting on the box of cupcakes), I don't think we could have asked for things to go more smoothly. :)
Now we are anticipating spring so we can put together the awesome teeter totter Lilah got. It says 7 kids can fit on it, which means if I evenly distribute my weight, I can go on by myself right?

Other good news is that Lilah's vocab has expanded a little more. She says Papa for Grandpa Rich, and bye bye now (in addition to mama and dada). McKenna is getting really good at counting and is beginning to understand the concept of addition. She can count items in sequence up to 13 with no trouble at all. Also, McKenna got to participate in her first day at nursery school last week at Jack & Jill's Nursery School. She really seemed to enjoy herself and is excited to start going there in fall. We plan on enrolling her for September classes every Tues & Thurs.

That's it for now. Thank you again everybody for being so great to our girls. We are so thankful for our family and friends and hope that you continue to fare well in these tough economic times.

Love Jaime

Jaime got run over by a reindeer

So today for the first time ever I really felt like the hands of time were giving me the finger.

I went into a Walgreen's to pick up some prescriptions, waited in line, everything seemed to be business as usual....
When it was my turn, I walked up to the counter and said in my most straight forward tone, "Prescription pick up for Beadnell." The Pharmacy Tech smiled and nodded in acknowledgment, she turned to the cubby holes that so neatly organize the medications alphabetically for all the sickies and druggies in the general Bothell vicinity. "Beadnell...Beadnell...Beadnell," she chanted under her breath, "Beadnelllll..." her voice trailed off and you could clearly see the light bulb flash above her head "Ah yes, Beadnell," she said. She turned away from the small, well aligned prescription cubes and reached under the sterile counter. Grunting, she bent down and strained herself backwards to pull a brown paper bag out from the shelf beneath her. "Jaime Beadnell right?"
"Uh, yeah," came my reply.
"Here's YOUR prescription, I assume you have taken ALL of these prescriptions before?"
That's about the time when I felt those hands of time slap me across the face, and I am pretty sure Father Time was laughing from somewhere down one of the other aisles. My prescription was so huge they had to store it in a special area beyond the cubbies? When did I become THAT person?
I don't even know what else to say about this.....or maybe I do, but I forgot already because I am suffering from age related memory loss. In any case I am feeling really old today and that makes me feel sick so I need to go take some pills...
.....now if I could only remember where I left them......?
Jaime

These boots are made for walking, and that's just what they'll do...

She's walking, she's walking, she's walking!!!!! Our beautiful little angel has been walking for a little over a week now and is getting mighty good at it. Lilah is pretty proud of herself when she gets onto her feet and displays her cowgirl/bowlegged walking stance, she's falling down plenty but it hasn't seemed to phase her at all. I have to say watching her make tracks is my favorite Christmas gift by far....it's the gift that keeps on giving. :)

I am beginning to recover from pneumonia now, it's been a tough road but I think the antibiotics are starting to work. The toughest obstacle is trying to sleep through coughing which is a task in itself.....

Christmas turned out nice, Mark picked up my sister, my mom and dad from their homes so they could spend Christmas Day with us. We had tacos for lunch and opened some pretty spectacular gifts. I'd say the day turned out pretty perfect, and even the snow fall, which I usually scoff at, was a nice touch for Christmas Day. I can't remember the last white Christmas before this one. The girls were in a great mood the whole day and McKenna had a BLAST opening gifts. It turns out, it doesn't matter what you get for a toddler as long as it needs to be unwrapped, it makes them happy.

Thank you to everyone who made this Christmas so special for our family. We love you all!!!!

P.S. Mark got me a set of pans, an iron, and a hand mixer.....do you think I should take that as a hint?! ~Jaime